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47 Desserts Worth Celebrating
from Cove magazine
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DESSERTS WORTH CELEBRATING
From edible artworks to the sweetest of treats, the Gold Coast is home to a delectable array of desserts.
Bam Bam Goya Harajuku Gyoza JW Marriott
Kaffe Europa Nineteen at The Star Raijin
GREAT SWEETS SPEAK of skill mastery in composition, balance of flavours and textures, with impressive presentation.
Whether you enjoy them in high-end restaurants, or purchase them from humble cafés or an industrial warehouse, here are some sweet treats worth celebrating.
THE CLASSICS The iconic ‘Voronoi Little Cocoa Chocolate with flavours of Jaffa’ at Palette, HOTA, is one of our most photographed desserts.
A collaboration between Executive Chef Dayan Harthill-Law and chocolatier Alicia Chapman of Little Cocoa, you will be eating a masterpiece, a white chocolate tumbler coated in the Voronoi pattern of the HOTA building filled with taste delights of miso ice-cream, layered toffee and banoffee.
There’s more than a touch of illusion, too, in the ‘Citrus Illusion’, the realistic citrus-looking dessert featured at Citrique at the JW Marriott Gold Coast Resort & Spa.
A perfectly formed citrus chocolate shell is filled with a light lemon curd, white chocolate, and citrus sponge, surrounded by myrtle meringue, giving its flavour profile a native Australian edge. WORDS MARJ OSBORNE
The simply named ‘Beetroot, strawberry, yoghurt’ at The North Room is anything but simple.
Instead, we find a stunning assemblage of beetroot meringue shards and freshly cut strawberries plunged into a base of sour yoghurt crowned with beetroot powder and accompanied by strawberry sorbet.
A taste sensation, this dessert’s balance teeters between savoury and sweet.
While lemon meringue pie is refreshing, the ‘Chocolate meringue pie’ from Nineteen at The Star is the indulgence you never knew you needed; a touch of luxe and a perfect way to end your meal.
Also at The Star Gold Coast, Chase Gojima’s ‘Goma Street’ dessert at Kiyomi has been recognised as one of Queensland's top ten dishes.
In this East-meets-West dish tempered dark chocolate and caramelised white chocolate mousse are served with black sesame ice cream on a bed of biscuit crumb.
The cutting edge Asian-inspired bar and eatery Eddy + Wolff takes ice cream in a more savoury direction with their Soy sauce ice cream.
Flavour bomb ingredients include soy caramel, chilli, garlic, Korean crumb and rose petals; quite the hypnotic mix.
Rise Bakery
THE CONTENDERS As dining trends towards casual venues, we also enjoy great desserts in bakeries, cafés and warehouses across the Gold Coast.
Classic sweets are produced by chef pâtissiers at cafés and pastry shops such as the Pastry Emporium, 5B2F, My French Pastries, Kaffe Europa and Mark Daniel’s Patisserie.
One of our favourite pâtisseries, Aux Fines Bouches, is situated in Burleigh’s industrial area.
Highly awarded chef pâtissier Richard Le Deunff handcrafts every element of his pastry masterpieces.
If you forced us to choose one pastry alone, it would be Delice aux Noisettes, Richard’s own creation, inspired by Richard Hawke, ‘a marriage between hazelnut (or Gianduja) and milk chocolate, the two elements presented in different ways (mousse and chantilly)’.
The newly opened Rise Bakery at Sanctuary Cove makes an excellent hazelnut Paris Brest, a rich but not-too-sweet version of the French classic.
Created in 1910 to promote the bicycle race from Paris to Brest in Brittany, the Paris Brest is a split doughnut-shaped choux pastry filled with crème mousseline, topped with a nutstudded praline.
Mention Portuguese Tart and Lisboa springs to mind.
Joe Rocha opened his popup stall in Robina Town Centre in 2015.
Now operating his own café in Brisbane, Joe follows an authentic Portuguese recipe, handmaking every part of the tart by hand.
Cultured butter and organic eggs are used in his superb silky custard filling in a crisp puff pastry crust.
Lisboa’s Portuguese tarts are available at Barbosa Fine Food Deli.
The Bread Social makes an excellent version of the beloved Brûlée Tart of Bourke Street Bakery Sydney fame.
Don’t be fooled by its ‘ugly duckling’ appearance … after one bite there is no going back.
Its thick rich custard filling in a short pastry shell is balanced by a burnt sugar coating that shatters at first bite.
Luxury in disguise, the flavours and textures of this tart are simply hypnotic.
Then there are the desserts and sweet treats with viral popularity.
Mention Nutella-oozing cookie stacks (Paddock, Custard Canteen and Cubby), Strawberry tart (Bam Bam), Biscoff cupcakes (Sugar Royalty), Hot chocolate cups (Tarte), Nutella bomba (Gemellini) and over-the-top waffles (Oh My, Waffle) and your audience will be standing at attention.
In the absence of crêpe brûlée and watermelon cake, other classic Asian sweets are trending on social media, some with viral popularity.
From halo-halo (Kubo’s) to the 30-layer mille crêpe cakes (Moli), ice desserts and mochi, matcha and black sesame, our izakayas and Asianinfluenced cafés hold an abundance of interest on their dessert menus.
Harajuku Gyoza brings us its own version of the viral trend dessert Japanese Air Cheesecake.
First made popular by YouTuber Emmymade after finding the recipe on a Japanese cream cheese packet, the Harajuku team hand pipe their cheesecake to order, dusting the top with kinako powder and serving it with a pot of delicious brown sugar syrup.
You’ll find Insta-worthy attention-grabbing Soufflé Pancakes at Raijin, Palm Beach.
Owner/chef Fuji is the master of these notoriously labour-intensive airy and cloudlike pancakes.
His mild vanilla-tasting pancakes leave the flavour bomb to the topping.
Our tiramisu pancake, complete with cream, strawberries, mascarpone and affogato is a sensational dessert.
There’s also a Matcha, yuzu and raw choco version.
Talking matcha, Goya Café’s Matcha tiramisu is a lesson in simplicity, adding a Japanese twist to an Italian classic.
So many choices, so little time.
In the end there is only one piece of advice we can give you: “Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.” – Ernestine Ulmer
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